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The Drowned and the Saved (Abacus Books) (Paperback)

by Primo Levi (Author), R. Rosenthal (Translator)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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Price For All Three: £19.30

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (1 Feb 1991)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0349100470
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349100470
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 17,213 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #2 in  Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Italy
    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > L > Levi, Primo
    #3 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > P > Primo, Levi

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Review

'Levi writes of unspeakable things with charity, clarity and objectivity' SUNDAY TIMES 'Levi's work is a model of patience and hard-won enlightenment, a search for illumination in places where there appeared to be none.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'It is, as always, an intellectual and aesthetic pleasure to follow the perfection of style, the manner of exposition, both subtle and lucid.' OBSERVER 'The horror of what he reveals is made all the more terrifying by a prose style which is cool, clear and unsparing. The most powerful message to emerge from this book is that we must learn the lessons of history so as not to repeat its mistakes.' YORKSHIRE POST 'With "the greatest possible objectivity" he set out to clarify what still remained obscure about the moral and psychological legacy, for both the victims and the perpetrator, of that colossal scourge. The result, to my mind, is one of the most devastating masterworks of our era, a grave rumination on the nature of the offence, substantiated by personal memory and rendered with exquisite intellectual precision.' Philip Roth 'Levi's writings have done more, by their intellectual tone and vigour, to ensure the world does not forget the horror- and reality- of the Holocaust.' THE LIST 'Throughout the book we hear the authentic, unfading note of a true master.' Andrew Motion 'As with everything he writes, he has a form of poetic clarity, an intelligent and clear appraisal of men and their behaviour towards one another. Few have written as well about human suffering.' THE SPECTATOR 'The stench of death permeates Levi's work but his words are not those of an embittered man... A work of art.' ORACLE TELETEXT


Product Description

Shortly after completing THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED, Primo Levi committed suicide. The matter of his death was sudden, violent and unpremiditated, and there were some who argue that he killed himself because he was tormented by guilt - guilt that he had survived the horrors of Auschwitz while others, better than he, had gone to the wall. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED is Levi's impassioned attempt to understand the 'rationale' behind the concentration camps, was completed shortly before his tragic death in 1987. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED dispels the myth that Primo Levi forgave the Germans for what they did to his people. He didn't and couldn't forgive. He refused, however, to indulge in what he called 'the bestial vice of hatred' which is an entirely different matter. The voice that sounds in his writing is that of a reasonable man...it warns and reminds us that the unimaginable can happen again. A would-be tyrant is waiting in the wings, with 'beautiful words' on his lips. The book is constantly impressing on us the need to learn from the past, to make sense of the senseless' PAUL BAILEY
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An analytical look at the Holocaust from a Witness, 23 Jan 2002
By magari420@hotmail.com (London, England) - See all my reviews
Levi once again manages to concisely delve into the topic of the Holocaust. Here he refers to his experiences to confront the deeper issues of life in the Lager and the after effects it had on the survivors, the Saved. It can best be surmised as a collection of essays that address various topics, (including, but not exclusively): the fallacies of memories, prisoners who cooperated with the Nazis, the importance of communication and language in the Lager, the guilt felt by survivors and the response from his German readers. If you have read Levi's autobiographical works, then this is a necessary accompaniment. The only negative thing I have to say about this edition is the review on the back jacket which so firmly states that Levi's death was a suicide, and makes conjectures as to why he did so. His death is a mystery and will always remain as such.(Good content, bad cover!)
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars How does one survive in a world built to murder you?, 23 Aug 2004
By A Customer
I heard recently a statistic that claimed that more than 12% of the population of the UK (of adult age)had never even heard of Adolf Hitler. How many of those that did, I wondered, knew about what he did to European Jewry? Those who do know of the holocaust usually know of little other than Auschwitz but even then only think of it as a railway station with a path to the side that leads to a gas chamber, not as an actual camp where thousands struggled to live what life they were temporarily allowed in order to serve their murderes via forced labour.

Prison stories are always chilling but most think of prison as a place of holding until release, not death. What place does morality, conscience, hygiene and dignity have in a death camp?

Levi's description of camp life in 'Is this a Man'is not as brutal and disturbing as perhaps those related in Martin Gilbert's 'The Holocaust', the book seems less about the atrocities afflicted on the inmates but on how they survived them and further still retained the spirit and will to continue. In 'The Drowned and the Saved' Levi attempts to understand the German people of the Nazi era. How they endorsed or allowed themselves to be seduced by the Nazi ideology... by greed, vanity and hatred... to turn their backs on morality, truth and basic human goodness. Germany will always be remembered or rather tarnished because of the Nazis, it will always remain as much a part of their history as the Congo atrocities belonged to Leopold's Belgium, Australia's belong with the British and the on-going crimes visited on the Native Americans...

I have not the knowledge or right to really comment on his work or indeed on the work of any survivor. It is not my place even to judge those that commited the crimes. What is important is that I (and others of my age) know of them. For to be ignorant of it is not only a betrayal of those destroyed by it, but a further crime against those who survived it.

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A survivor of hell, writing with compassion and wisdom, 24 Sep 2004
By Gareth Smyth "Enjilos" (Beirut) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
I read this book during the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 as I wondered what would happen to the Lebanese I was meeting who had collaborated with the Israeli occupiers. Who exactly was guilty? And how guilty were they?

Levi writes about guilt in the horrific circumstances of the Nazi concentration camp, mulling over those who co-operated with the Nazis (working, eg, as cleaners)if only to extend their lives by a short period. He writes with an astonishing humanity and humility, and with a strange detachment that makes his observations more telling.

Having survived such a hell, he felt the guilt of the 'saved' that he had seen so many 'drown' and he wrote as a man of compassion and wisdom. Levi will make you cry and take you to the depths, but somehow make you feel stronger.

Surely one of the most important books of the twentieth century.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Death camp survivor
The author, Primo Levi, tries to understand the rationale behind Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen. Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2007 by David I. Howells

5.0 out of 5 stars How does one survive in a world built to murder you?
I heard recently a statistic that claimed that more than 12% of the population of the UK (of adult age)had never even heard of Adolf Hitler. Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars A moving and thought provoking account of the Holocaust
Moving, thought provoking and upsetting. It made me want to read it until I reached the very end without pausing for breath. Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2001

3.0 out of 5 stars A moving account that somehow fails its purpose
This book envoked mixed emotions. The descriptions of the suffering endured by the prisoners of war is both powerful and deeply upsetting. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars A sensitive depiction of the holocaust
Primo Levi's superb and moving account of his experiences of Auschwitz KZ. Now that there seems to be a nascent industry of books and films about this tragic episode in Europe's... Read more
Published on 24 Oct 1999

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